The ability to accurately track and locate personnel can be critical to a mission's success or failure. Mission commanders leading an emergency response team are often limited in their ability to determine where critical assets are located, including human assets that have been dispatched into the field. Certain technologies have been developed that can enable tracking of assets. Tracking can be achieved through the use of continuous radio frequency communications, such as global positioning satellite (GPS) systems, or other types of radio frequency triangulation systems.
In situations where radio frequency reception may be spotty, or non-existent, the radio frequency tracking of human assets can be supplemented by deduced reckoning techniques that can be used to provide substantially accurate positional information to enable mission commanders to make more informed decisions in time critical situations.
However, even the most accurate tracking technologies are of little use without the ability to display a location of the assets in the field. In certain situations, displaying a location of assets may be reasonably straight forward. For example, when a three dimensional computer model of a building has been previously designed, the model can be used to show a location of the assets within the building. At some point in the future, first responders such as police and firemen may have accurate three dimensional computer models of most buildings in their coverage area. However, at the present time, the existence of such pre-existing three dimensional computer models for most buildings in a city is sporadic at best. This lack of pre-existing three dimensional computer models can diminish the effectiveness of the use of tracking technologies for first responders.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.